This invention relates to a new versatile carrying bar which can be mounted on a car roof whether or not it is fitted with a gutter.
Carrying bars are already known for supporting luggage on car roofs. They are always provided with a carrying tube, the ends of which include support feet matingly engaged with the side contours of the roof.
Heretofore, bars are generally classified into bars for roofs including gutters and bars for roofs without gutters.
While roofs equipped with gutters show no problems, it is not so with the increasingly numerous gutter-free roofs, the very different contours of which more often require a specific support foot adapted to the contour of each roof type, thereby multiplying models and increasing commercial and manufacturing difficulties.
The early introduced devices included at each end thereof a support foot provided with a crosshead attached to the carrying tube, equipped with a support pad bearing on the roof and a tab applied against the edge thereof within the gap between the roof and the door top. The whole assembly was tightened by a connecting screw.
Such a device which gave good results with roofs being sufficiently crush-proof is not efficient with the new thin sheet metal roofs free from side reinforcing ribs.
This is why devices have been developed further including, in addition to the above-mentioned systems, a rigid connecting member of the cable or tube type wich is in parallel relationship with the carrying tube and connects the support-feet in order to prevent them from diverging when the roof is compressed.
The disadvantages of such a system are that it practically requires a connecting member for each roof type, even a different one between the fore and the rear parts; apart from the whole assembly being unaesthetic, said connecting member is the source of unpleasant noise due to air whistling when laminated between connecting member and roof.